Not a 'conventional' bio-pic, but an intriguing mixture
of commentary, archive film, reconstructions, intertitles and stylised direct
address to camera. The latter is provided by a mixture of family, former
comrades of Malcolm, cultural commentators from contemporary Afro-American
academia, and other interested parties, such as Spike Lee, whose frequent
acting collaborator Giancarlo Esposito is one of the voices on the soundtrack.

Never dull or over-worthy, this film, broadcast last year
on Channel 4, takes the viewer/listener through the complexities of Malcolm's
life and the developments within and outside the Organisation of the Afro-American
Unity. The figure 'seven' is important throughout for its relevance to Islamic
culture, and the structure of the film reflects this, albeit at times obliquely.
Malcolm is described in the film as the first great media politician. How
much of his message was direct to Afro-American peoples, how much of it
was part of a wider, global appeal on human rights issues? Watch and decide
for yourself. Intriguing music track, incidentally, with Bach, Penderecki,
Monk, Bird, tenorist Bill Saxton and AACM drummer Thurman Barker. (Gerard
F Tierney)

A film which owes so much to other film makers that it's
a miracle the bailiffs haven't been sent round. Perhaps that's because the
heavy influences have been put to such good use. First of all, the general
tone of the film comes from Ingmar Bergman via the more modern filter of
Hal Hartley. The characters are generally young (at least in appearance!)
and suffer a high level of late 20th- century existential alienation, their
dialogue is abstracted and disjointed, their actions lack certainty. The
actors are from the Hartley stable. Martin Donovan starred in The Unbelievable
Truth and Amateur alongside Elina Löwensohn who also featured
in Simple Men.

Other influences are Carl Dreyer's Vampyr (in the
eerie use of disquieting close-ups, a pervasive lyrical unreality, and scenes
of supernatural horror in everyday settings) and FW Murnau's Nosferatu,
inasmuch as Nadja is also an adaptation of Dracula with a number
of significant changes. Nadja (Löwensohn) is a Dracula who rarely shows
her fangs yet retains a deep sense of ennui and alienation. Renfield, Jonathan
Harker and Van Helsing (played by a frenetic Peter Fonda) are also present,
while Lucy is stunningly portrayed by the strangely named and magnetic Galaxy
Craze, an actress we need to see more often. David Lynch's influence is
also apparent (not only as a director but also as producer and in a bit
part as a morgue attendant), as is the American Underground Film's kitsch
technique of using Fisher-Price's toy Pixelation video camera for the scenes
of vampirism.

However, even with all these highly visible influences,
Almereyda has made a worthwhile and original film. The story, although hackneyed,
is engaging because of the lack of moral outrage or horror shown by the
characters - the presence of vampires in the middle of New York seems to
be business as usual to them. This sets it apart from other adaptations
of Stoker's book, but the film's real focus is the performance of Löwensohn
and Craze who both bring a subtle passion to their roles. Perhaps someone
will now make 'Jim Jarmusch's Frankenstein'. (Jim Barker)

This is chosen as an example of the art-house fare now
widely available on video soon after cinema release. Although attention
is currently focused on Asian cinema, Mexico produces a significant number
of films, of which the recent Cronos, a dark, brooding horror piece,
is highly recommended. Like Water For Chocolate itself followed a
common route: festival acclaim leading to limited, targeted, cinema release,
in this case including success in the US, which is understandable since
there are elements of the 'feel-good' about it. Based on a famous novel,
Like Water is a story of love and passion in the early part of this
century; food becomes the central device through which these emotions are
expressed. Folk tales and the supernatural play an important part in the
narrative, politics less so; the revolution appears as a 'noise off' which
occasionally intrudes. This has been celebrated as a 'women's film' (some
individual women in control, some subversion of the patriarchy); it has
to be said that the issue of class is hardly touched on. Servants pass on
recipes which transform lives, but they remain servants; the camera lingers
elsewhere. Stylish and entertaining all the same. (Gerard F Tierney)

At approximately 5 hours, the TV version of Fanny And
Alexander is not for the faint-hearted. The film is basically one-paced:
a majestic largo in 5 Acts with Prologue and Epilogue, and so needs
to be given time to unfold and reveal its treasures, of which there are
many.

The first and most obvious is Sven Nykvist's splendid cinematography
(he worked on 22 Bergman projects), capturing the affluence and grandeur
of the Ekdahl family in turn-of-the-century Sweden, and later the austerity
of the Bishop's residence to which the children, Fanny (aged 8) and Alexander
(aged 10), are transported after the death of their thespian father."There
is nothing more beautiful than faces in a simple room," Nykvist once
said. He and Bergman proved this in Cries And Whispers and do so
again. Bergman's disposition of actors within the frame, his use of close-ups
to elicit tenderness or menace, are as impeccable as ever; the use of a
dynamic frame for the scene where the wife mourns the loss of her husband,
creates an atmosphere as harrowing as any Bergman has put before us.

This is not, however, a study in pessimism (a common enough
misgiving about the director's work), rather, a sensitive interplay of darkness
and light. Scenes of religious solemnity and marital discord are interspersed
with moments of ribaldry and gleeful silliness. Even the puritanical bishop,
a man for whom "a loving punishment can never be humiliating in the
deeper sense", is presented with a hint of the larger-than-life. The
upper room in which he imprisons the children, with windows that do not
open and bars across the panes, is like something out of Hans Christian
Andersen. The manner of their escape is also the stuff of fairy-tales. Ghosts
stalk the corridors. Magic and illusion collude to subvert narrative realism.
The film ends with a quote from August Strindberg's A Dream Play,
reminding us that the art of storytelling itself is the hub from which all
other themes radiate.

Fanny And Alexander was to
be Bergman's farewell to the cinema. Happily, it is not the work of a great
director running out of creative steam. Whether it will be regarded as one
of his more important films is a matter for further critical debate. That
it will continue to delight for a long time to come, there can be no doubt.
(Chris Blackford)

Thought for the Day: "Those who have not lived before
the revolution have not tasted the sweetness of life" - Talleyrand.
Alternative Thought for the Day: If Bertolucci's later films have seemed
like endless empty spectacles to you, then check out his second film, made
in 1964 when he was only 22. Sure, there are baroque, ornate camera movements,
but the style is much more varied, with hand-held work, jump cuts and modish
references to Godard. The film's subject matter may seem fairly banal, dealing
with the struggles of a young bourgeois: to conform or to follow the Party,
to marry or to pursue an affair with his aunt; it's the telling that is
fresh and exciting. There are obvious references to Stendhal's Le Rouge
Et Le Noir, a whacking chunk of Verdi at the end, and Bertolucci's usual
helping of Marx and Freud, but it all hangs together. Almost impossible
to believe this was made by a 22-year old, and thirty years ago: it's a
remarkably mature film by any standards, and quite ageless. (Gerard F Tierney)

Institute Benjamenta sees the
American Quay twins (Stephen and Timothy, born 1947) making their live-action
feature debut, having already gained an international reputation for richly
inventive animated films. Borowczyk and Svankmajer are other celebrated
animators - whose surrealist influence is perceptible in Quay work - to
have successfully made this transition.

Prospective viewers should acquaint themselves with Swiss
writer Robert Walser's 1908 novel Jakob von Gunten on which Institute
Benjamenta is based (the novel is published in the UK by Serpent's Tail
under the film title). However, the Quays and screenplay collaborator Alan
Passes have taken liberties with the novel, most noticeably by making protagonist
Jakob (Mark Rylance) and fellow students at this extraordinary school for
servants considerably older than Walser's schoolboys. While a certain vulnerability
and pathos have thus been heightened, the complexity of Jakob's mental life
has been disappointingly reduced to bewilderment and willing obedience.
In the novel, which is his private journal, he is also capable of pride,
pomposity, naivety, truculence, intellectual acuity, and sexual arousal.
A few carefully chosen passages would have restored these important characteristics
without upsetting the pervasive enigmatic mood of the piece.

In terms of characterisation, most attention here has been
devoted to Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta, the brother and sister partnership
in command at the Institute. Jakob's arrival, and his subsequent status
as unwitting agent provocateur, signal the gradual collapse of the Benjamentas'
governance, as their repressed fears and desires surface. In Johannes, magister-ially
played by Gottfried John, the Quays sensitively draw out a homosexual inclination
(less evident in the novel) towards Jakob, and a clear suggestion of a hesitant,
unfulfilled incestuous desire between him and Lisa, again only very covertly
hinted at in the novel. Lisa (which is also the name of Walser's sister)
is played to perfection by Alice Krige who, with memorable equanimity, registers
every nuance of emotion from abject lovelessness to mildly hysterical sexual
frustration. The meaning behind these power games and ritualistic acts of
subordination and subjugation, in which the Quays find delightful moments
of bizarre deadpan humour, is never fully revealed; nor is the secret of
the Benjamentas' "inner chambers" (surely not merely a goldfish
in a bowl). One suspects that the Benjamentas' forbidden love - certainly
the greatest act of emotional subjugation here - may be the underlying cause
of the uneasy atmosphere in their dilapidated Institute.

This atmosphere is superbly evoked by the Quays customary
visual flair and meticulous attention to mise-en-scène detail, where
live-action and animation sequences are seamlessly integrated. The black
and white photography is exquisite, each gentle movement of light in shadowy
corridors creates an air of dream-like enchantment (echoes of Cocteau and
Vigo). Classroom scenes in misty greys are invigorated by Jankowski's versatile
score: a waltz turns into free jazz. Repeat viewings reveal the subtlety
of the Quays' art. (Chris Blackford)

Kevin Brownlow (documentary film maker, author, and film
restorer, specializing in the silent era of Hollywood) began It Happened
Here when he was 18 and co-director Andrew Mollo (military historian,
assistant director and production designer) was a mere 16 years of age.
After 10 years of piecemeal shooting on a miniscule budget the film was
financed by Tony Richardson's Woodfall Films. The film asks: What might
have happened if the German army had successfully invaded Britain in the
1940s? This is explored in the form of a documentary-style narrative without
the use of stock footage or newsreels: all the atmosphere of a nation under
occupation is recreated in absorbing detail (posters in the street, Nazi
broadcasts and music on the radio, etc) and using an almost entirely non-professional
cast. Pauline Murray plays the District Nurse who joins the Immediate Action
Organisation, a group of British collaborators who now promote the doctrine
of National Socialism. Soon she discovers the evil that lies behind this
efficient bureaucracy which purports to offer the country a new stability
and purpose.

The film's great strength resides in its understated treatment
of the emotive subject matter; its ability to show the barbarity of fascism
with an almost analytic detachment and without the usual moralising tone.
It's a skilful blend of documentary realism and imaginative hypothesizing
that never falters under the weight of its considerable ambitions. Hardly
seen for 30 years, It Happened Here is a triumph of low-budget, independent
British film-making. The opportunity to see it now should not be missed.
(Chris Blackford)

"Bunuel's women are fabulous masochists. They love
being maimed, tortured and degraded. How it comes about that the feminist
movement seems not to question Buñuel is a total mystery." (Paul
Mayersberg, 1983)

Although these remarks are not directed at any specific
Buñuel (l900~l983) film, they are certainly pertinent to any discussion
of Belle de Jour with its central theme of female sexual fantasy.

The film is based on Joseph Kessel's 1928 psychological
novel about a bored young wife who feels the urge to spend her afternoons
in a brothel. Buñuel transforms this material into a complex study
of bourgeois sexual morality: its sadomasochistic, sub/dom role-playing,
guilt-ridden fantasies. These are explored through the (day)dreams of the
well-to-do Severine (played superbly by Catherine Deneuve), who pays imaginary
visits to a Parisian brothel where she enacts various fantasies. Lesbianism
is only suggested, and the incest episode was trimmed by the censors.

So, is this directorial misogyny, Freudian satire, or just
a surreal sex(ist) romp? Difficult to be certain, really. Buñuel's
unobtrusive camerawork doesn't fetishize Severine/Deneuve or overtly ridicule
the goings-on. Severine is in control of her fantasies, feels fulfilled
by some, guilty about others; but, of course, these are structured by Buñuel
- the male gaze representing its version of female sexual fantasy.
Introduce sadomasochism and you are in a veritable minefield of controversy.
And Bunuel knows this. Even the "feminist movement" is divided
on the issue of sadomasochistic female fantasy, which possibly explains
why this intelligent, teasingly constructed film has not been dismissed.

Another fine French actress, Jeanne Moreau, provides the
sexual energy at the centre of The Diary Of A Chambermaid. Set in
provincial France in the 1920s, and based on the 1900 novel by Octave Mirbeau,
this sombre tale follows the 'progress' of a stylish, working-class, Parisian
woman who takes up employment as a chambermaid in an upper-class household.
The master is a sex-starved lecher, mainly because his wife finds sexual
intercourse too painful; her aged father is a boot fetishist who enjoys
literature, and Joseph, the handyman/gardener, an unsavoury, sadistic, Fascist
brute. Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) uses charm, cunning and sexual potency
to consolidate her position amongst this lot, eventually marrying an ex-army
captain. She enters the ranks of the bourgeoisie, but not without a sense
of apprehension and resignation. Even her lustre has been tarnished.

Buñuel's understated film uses these characters
to focus on larger themes such as upper-class decadence and the rise of
Fascism in Europe. A series of resonant images operating like visual rhymes
across the narrative reveal the tension between innocence/beauty and savagery/sadism.
A shotgun blasts a butterfly from atop a flower; we hear the sound of a
goose left to bleed to death; snails crawl over the legs of a raped and
murdered girl. The balance is tipped on the side of savagery/sadism. Buñuel's
evocation of this ominous climate is masterly. Moreau's performance is magnificent.
(Chris Blackford)

By using two well known female body builders, but setting
them in the fictionalised context of the Caesar's Palace World Cup Championship,
Pumping Iron II uses documentary drama to explore the world of competitive
female body building. The acting may be rather wooden at times, but this
'realism' only serves to reinforce the sense that we are being taken behind
the scenes.

On one level the film operates as a straightforward narrative
about the mounting tension between Rachel McLish, current World Champion,
and Bev Francis, ex-power-lifter turned body builder, as they prepare for
the final of a presitigious competition. Taking the meaning of 'body building'
literally (in the way that men do) as a quest to build and then exhibit
the largest possible muscles, the arrival on the scene of Bev Francis' hugely
muscular body presents a challenge to the judges' existing tendency to choose
women who look 'athletic' but remain 'feminine'.

This then is both the judges' and our dilemma: should Bev
Francis' muscular body be accepted as just another form of femininity, another
way of representing the female body, or has she transgressed the boundaries
of what it is to be female. By raising questions such as these, Pumping
Iron II also serves as an enjoyable and accessible route into contemporary
cultural debates about the possibilities for reshaping the body, redefining
femininity and challenging, even blurring, gender distinctions. (Catherine
Blackford)

Jane Campion - Three Short Films

Dir. Jane Campion (Connoisseur Video CR 092)

With her latest film, The Piano, having established
her as one of cinema's most original, younger (born 1955, New Zealand) directorial
talents, now seems an opportune moment to look back at the formative work
of Jane Campion.

Passionless Moments (1984,
12 mins, b/w) presents a series of vignettes featuring everyday 'characters'
involved in moments of absurd, profound, even transcendent contemplation:
moments, according to Campion and her co-director Gerard Lee, which each
have "a fragile presence which fades almost as it forms." The
flatness of the voice-over resembles documentary; expressive camera angles
sometimes weave a whimsical poetry out of banal situations. There are echoes
of early Greenaway shorts in how the genres merge and collide. A Girl's
Own Story (1983, 26 mins, b/w) is an evocation of female adolescence
during 60s Beatlemania. Family discord, schoolgirl rivalries, sexual awakening,
incest and pregnacy through incest, are among the film's intense themes,
an intensity spiced with a generous measure of irresistible off-beat humour.
An episodic approach to narrative and paranoid framing produce a work as
entertaining as it is disturbing. Some of the darker themes surface again
in her memorable feature debut Sweetie (1989). Finally, Peel
(1982, 9 mins, Colour), which tells of a father's attempts to discipline
his young son, also peels back the layers of normality to reveal an ambiguous
zone fizzing with stressed-out tensions and boisterous humour. While Campion's
more recent work may have moved closer to the mainstream, it still retains
the experimental edge of these shorts. (Chris Blackford)

A major contributor to the French journal Cahiers du
Cinema in the late 50s, Claude Chabrol's early work formed part of the
French New Wave. By the early 60s, however, while Cahier colleagues
Godard and Truffaut were experimenting with improvisation and cinema verité,
Chabrol concentrated his talents on the more commercially orientated art
film.

It was Les Biches (1968) that established Chabrol's
international reputation. Perhaps its most perfect moment is the opening
scene set against a backdrop of a sepia-tinted Paris. Dressed in black,
the elegant Frederique (Stéphane Audran) circles around and coolly
appraises a young female street artist called Why (Jacqueline Sassard).
In Frederique's second home - beautifully shot in the deserted streets and
squares of an out of season St Tropez - the lovers establish a relaxed domestic
routine. Their relationship is disturbed, however, by the arrival of Paul
(Jean-Louis Trintignant) who seduces Why and is in turn seduced by Frederique,
who claims she has fallen in love. Appearances are not what they seem, and
a sensual, psychological 'game' of shifting identities ensues, intensified
by Chabrol's sumptuous, yet understated lighting. Whether Frederique's appropriation
of Paul is motivated by genuine love or simply the desire to possess what
Why wants is never clear.

Using an outsider to introduce psychological tension is
a narrative device employed to great effect in another of Chabrol's important
late 60s films, Le Boucher (1969). Filmed on location in the Dordogne,
it opens with a detailed picture of the rhythms and routines of provincial
life; a pattern upset by the news that another young woman has been murdered.
As the murders disrupt village life, the carefully controlled life of Mademoiselle
Hélène, the glamorous village headmistress (Stéphane
Audran), is gradually torn apart by her friendship with Popaul (Jean Yanne),
a local butcher returned from 15 years army service. Obsessed with the horrific
details of his army life, Popaul recalls, across the butcher's slab, memories
of dismembered bodies. Tension mounts: guilt, fear and forgiveness intertwine,
culminating in a bloody conclusion where there is no comfortable dividing
line between victim and protagonist. Chabrol again captures all the psychological
complexities in his usual elegant, understated visual style.

Le Cri du Hibou (1987) is a
minor work by comparison. A variation on familiar themes of guilt, obsession
and revenge, with an unsettling conclusion where the main protagonist (Christophe
Malavoy) emerges credibly as both the victim of revenge and also skilful
manipulator. However, there's little here in Le Cri du Hibou of Chabrol's
usual cinematographic appeal: neither his close attention to natural surroundings
or the glamour of a lead actress like Stéphane Audran, which made
Les Biches and Le Boucher so rewarding. (Catherine Blackford)

Jean Cocteau's intention was to create a version of the
well known fairy tale, Beauty And The Beast, in a "realistic
style", thus "making the implausible plausible". His Beast
would be so human, appealing and superior to men that Beauty would be disappointed
when he was transformed into Prince Charming. Unfortunately, the critics
at the time of its release, were disappointed too, considering the pace
too slow, Jean Marais' triple role as the unworthy Avenant, the Beast and
the Prince, too problematic, and the final bathetic twist, unwelcome. Nevertheless,
La Belle Et La Bête has stood the test of time and remains,
for this writer at least, a delightful achievement.

The "realistic style" turns out to be more magical
than many big-budget films using sophisticated special effects. Henri Alekan's
cinematography, his use of limbo lighting in the Beast's castle, where disembodied
arms hold jewelled candelabra, marvellously conjures the mood of enchantment.
The rooftop sequence, amid baroque animal sculptures, has an eerie beauty.
Marais' performance as the Beast is commanding: a fine balance of the monstrous
and the pitiable, realised through a combination of silent screen grand
gesture and modern acting. Even by today's standards, the Beast's appearance
is extraordinary, and made moreso by the use of alarming extreme close-ups.
Beauty's (Josette Day) 'seduction' is never sentimentalised and consists
of a plausible development from initial fear and revulsion, through pity
to restrained passion. Cocteau's version of the tale is visually splendid
and gently subversive.

Arguably his finest film, Orphée is Cocteau's
updating of the Orphic myth: a complex and beguiling interpretation where
reality and unreality converge, overlap and interact. Frequent references
to sleep suggest the narrative is occurring in the unconscious mind of the
poet, Orphée. "The closer you get to a mystery, the more important
it is to be realistic," says Cocteau. His characters are recognisably
modern: Orphée (Jean Marais) and his wife Eurydice Maria Dea) live
in an ordinary home, have a garage and a car (which picks up mysterious
messages on its radio). But Death, in the guise of a Princess (Maria Casares),
and her motorcyclist emissaries, intrude and change everything, abducting
the couple and, after a trial, issuing the verdict that they can return
to Life if Orphée never again looks at Eurydice...

Cocteau interweaves his themes of fate, free will and (im)mortality
with a wonderful lightness of touch, using the cinematic language of slow
motion, reverse motion and lap dissolves to create the rhythm of a dream
- mysterious, puzzling, yet possessed of an inner consistency. Jean Marais
produces another stylish performance, sparkling with wit and refined sensuality.
The film is a landmark in avant-garde cinema, and an inspiration to all
who have the appetite to expand the formal frontiers of cinema. (Chris Blackford)

For years many myths and rumours have surrounded the Sun
Ra movie Space Is The Place. It was shown briefly in 1974 in San
Francisco, Boston and New York. The media response was slight and unresponsive.
Shortly after that it was shelved. Critics and fans have since praised and
gossiped about the movie often based only on fragments of information. Now,
due to the persistence of the producer's son and Bruce Ricker of Rhapsody
Films, it is being screened in the US and released on video in the UK. I
got the facts about this elusive film from its producer Jim Newman.

The project was started when Newman and director John Coney,
who had worked together on television arts programmes, approached Sun Ra.
Ra was enthusiastic and provided ideas involving "his idea of a separate
alternate destiny for black people apart from a sentence to death on planet
Earth." Originally, the film was intended to be a short documentary.
After a failed shoot during a show at San Francisco's Planetarium, the film-makers
re-grouped and took Ra and entourage to the Rosicurian Egyptian Museum.
The scenes filmed there include a fantastic dream sequence in which John
Gilmore appears as an Egyptian prince, covered in blue make-up and wrapped
as a mummy. He is awakened from death by the hand of Ra and rises from his
tomb.

Around the same time the producer put the group in a recording
studio and filmed them. Tunes recorded included 'We Travel the Spaceways',
'Calling Planet Earth', 'Satellites Are Spinning' and 'Outer Spaceways Inc.'.
This material makes the film special because of the unique way in which
it is integrated. The songs are worked into the framework of the narrative
so that they take on a whole new level of meaning. For example, when Ra's
spaceship heads for Earth, the Arkestra performs 'Calling Planet Earth'
and the spaceship itself appears to be moving through the power of music
(the soundtrack from the movie is released by Evidence).

Filming continued for a couple of weeks without a set storyline.
A giant inflatable spaceship was constructed and reproduced as a small model
to use keyed-in over space travel sequences. Ra was filmed arriving from
outer space and being confronted by the media. About eight months were spent
trying to edit the material into something coherent, without success. At
this point, they brought in a scriptwriter from Hollywood, Joshua Smith.
He wrote new scenes incorporating the sequences that had been shot. These
new scenes involved government agents out to get Ra and teenagers who would
interact with Ra and want to join his space travel ventures.

So, a year after beginning the film they were still shooting
more material. Smith didn't script everything. The scene where Ra talks
to teenagers in a youth centre is completely improvised. Smith helped pull
the film together, but he also added some elements that with the passing
of time came to be seen as distasteful and unproductive. When re-editing
the film in 1992 Jim Newman decided to cut these scenes, thereby shortening
the running time by about 20 minutes. The two scenes cut involved two young
women attached to Ra's nemesis, the Overseer. One took place in a whorehouse
and featured the women and government agents; the other took place in a
hospital.

One should not, however, overlook Ra's contribution to
the movie as "virtually everything of importance came out of his suggestions."
Ra did see the re-edited version and approved. The film had cost $250,000
by the time it was released - not a small budget for an independent movie
in 1974.

Space Is The Place is without
doubt the most important film on Ra. It is also very much of its time. Comparisons
have been drawn with the classic Blaxploitation movie Sweetback, which it
resembles in its psychedelic, sociological critique of American life. It
has also been compared to Alexandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, but on
a mystical level it's closer to Holy Mountain. In the end, Space
Is The Place is an oddball. Moving and seriously philosophical one minute,
humorous and silly the next, it's a fitting tribute to the many facets of
the creative mastery Ra achieved. I highly recommend it to the converted
and to those unfamiliar with his work. (Gamall Awad)

Although director Roger Corman is regarded by many as a
B-movie hack with nothing but dreck and kitsch in his repertoire, he's been
responsible for giving tuition and support to some of modern American cinema's
finest talents: Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, Robert De
Niro and Paul Bartel. Francis Ford Coppola (minus the 'Ford') first worked
for Corman by translating his Russian film purchases into English, even
though he didn't understand Russian. The success of one of these films enabled
Corman to give Coppola $20,000 to make his first film, Dementia 13.

It's not a particularly 'good' film by most lights - the
acting is mostly wooden, the plot is silly and the dialogue is weak - but
the mood and atmosphere transcend the technical failings to give us a glimpse
of Coppola's potential for off-kilter strange-ness that would come to fruition
in elements of Apocalypse Now (1979). Dementia 13 has a dream-like
quality similar to Dreyer's Vampyr (1931) and Robert Wise's The
Haunting (also 1963). The setting, an Irish castle, appears at times
to have been painted by the surrealist De Chirico, while the opening scenes
in a rowboat seem to have been filmed in the depths of space. A stunning
title sequence, showing a series of cross-faded paintings of drowning people
and surreal scenery, makes it one of the finest in low budget cinema. Influenced
by Psycho in its use of aloof and strong blonde actresses (the weirdly
attractive Luana Anders is superb as a manipulating gold-digger), and in
certain plot devices that I can't divulge for fear of spoiling a potential
viewer's enjoyment, Dementia 13 is very much a B-movie, yet offers
a clue to the direction Coppola might have taken. A dip in the weird pool.
(Jim Barker)

At first sight, there might appear to be little that links
the first two films of Catherine Deneuve's career; apart, that is, from
the striking, blonde beauty of this now iconic actress herself. Yet, in
both Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964) and Roman Polanski's
Repulsion (1965) there is a preoccupation with interiors; in particular,
the interiors of flats. Also, although both films are utterly different
in tone and style, it is Deneuve's character who is trapped or constrained
within these interiors, literally and metaphorically.

Demy's The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg is an explosion
of carefully co-ordinated (techni) colour, where the wallpaper matches dresses,
and bicycles match shirts. The staged quality of the film is further enhanced
by the unusual choice of an all-sung dialogue, from casual banter in the
workplace to heartfelt exchanges of love. This in turn seems to affect the
way characters move; they are not just acting but delivering sung performances.

On the surface, it's a fairly lighthearted film about the
trials of growing up, of falling in love, and seeking independence from
home and family. Genevieve (Deneuve), living and working with her mother
in an umbrella shop where - thanks to colour co-ordinated outfits she literally
blends into the décor - she meets Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) and falls
in love. Though the narrative hints at a greater complexity in the world
outside the home (the Algerian War and attitudes to illegitimacy, for example),
we are never allowed to become too immersed in the characters' emotions.
Demy's stunning use of co-ordinated colour is always the main focus of our
attention.

Interiors are used to rather different effect in Roman
Polanski's Repulsion; filmed in atmospheric black and white. We are
slowly drawn into the mind of the central character, Carol - Deneuve on
mesmerising form - so that we too begin to see the cracks opening in walls,
the images of men appearing in mirrors.

But first we meet her as a quiet, dreamy young Belgian
woman working in a beauty salon, follow her cautious moves to and from work
through the public male space and gaze of the streets. The nervousness of
this woman, a foreigner in London, unused to male company and attention,
gradually acquires a disturbing edge when she is left alone in the flat
by her sister (Yvonne Furneaux).

Polanski skilfully narrows the focus. The camera closes
in, framing head and shoulders, as Carol locks herself in the flat, hypersensitive
to every sound and movement of the light. Polanski then treats us to some
superb sequences as we see the interior of the flat through Carol's eyes
- the intense paranoia of the visuals imaginatively drawing on the surrealist
tradition. Only at the very end are we presented with another, sudden and
brutally shocking perspective, when we come to realise where we have been
taken. (Catherine Blackford)

The late 60s and early 70s was a time of political and
artistic turmoil for France. The riots of May 1968 had enormous repercussions,
while the intellectual outrage of the Situationists is still to be heard
loud and clear in pop culture today. This film was clearly part of that
anarchic and violent movement of liberation from the crushing weight of
conformity, industry and the absurd irrationality of the state. Themroc
(Michel Piccoli is magnificent) is a painter who paints the insides of the
gates while other painters paint the outsides. He then loses his job after
spying on his boss and the film ceases to be a general critique of the mund-anity
of work and becomes a tower of rage and bestiality. In a state of turmoil
Themroc returns home, seduces his sister and sets about re-inventing his
life. He liberates himself from possessions and becomes animalistic in desires
and actions. Scenes of incest, random beatings and cannibalism, yet it's
the deliberate and gleeful destruction of property which forms the most
shocking aspect of this film. A vitriolic and surreal attack on work and
conformity, Themroc is truly strange (although Faraldo made Bof!
along similar lines in 1970), not least in its use of language - entirely
gibberish. Be sure to search it out. A treasure. (Jim Barker)

It's easy to get wrapped up in all the myths about Fassbinder's
extraordinary life and death, and overlook a few facts. He was, of course,
the most astonishingly prolific film-maker of modern times, but let's not
forget that he also had a tremendous strike rate, a healthy proportion of
his work finding critical and public acclaim. This film, in most people's
estimation, ranks among the very finest of his works.

Although shot at a time when Fassbinder was, in the main,
using modern stories to dissect post-war Germany, Effi Briest is
based on Theodor Fontane's 1890s literary classic. A lonely, repressed,
naive young wife is trapped in marriage to an older man and becomes attracted
to his friend - to what extent we are never quite clear. The events that
follow are a ruthless analysis of the society in which the film is set,
as ruthless as, say, Fear Eats The Soul or Fox among Fassbinder's
present-day films. In fact, the correct title of the film is Fontane
Effi Briest, and it is very explicitly a reading of the novel, not an
adaptation. This doesn't make it over-arty or theoretical, however, just
very carefully distanced, allowing for the viewer to stay slightly detached
while working on its meaning. It's always sumptuous to look at: the art
direction and the black-and-white photography are first-rate. There are
some striking performances, too: long before she became an art cinema icon
(partly through later Fassbinder like Maria Braun), Schygulla was perhaps
at her best in this astonishing film. (Gerard F Tierney)

Tom McDonough once wrote that Charles Bukowski was "a
Zen lush". In a way that's all you need to know about him to enjoy
this understated Italian/French production. Based on Bukowski's Erections,
Ejaculations, Exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness, the
story follows the sordid, dissolute wanderings of Charles Sirking, a booze-sodden
writer whose only commitments are to the bottle and the romance of the street.
There are numerous, almost surreal, scenes in which Sirking (charmingly
played by Ben Gazzara, a member of John Cassavette's acting stable) attempts
to uncover truth through absurdity. A beautiful girl pierces her cheeks
with a giant safety-pin; a tiny woman-child hides in a darkened palace,
and Sirking attempts to re-enter a womb-like state by trying to insert himself
headfirst between the thighs of an overweight woman he's just had sex with
(a scene as much at home in the work of Robert Crumb as Charles Bukowski).

Ornella Muti as Cass, a tragically self-destructive prostitute,
is uncannily beautiful, while Susan Tyrrell and Tanya Lopert are also outstanding
in supporting roles. But the film has a certain lack of humour. Bukowski's
work is essentially absurd or blackly comic, yet Ferreri communicates little
of this. Barbet Schroeder's Barfly, starring Mickey Rourke, is in some ways
a companion to this film - a riotous outrage alongside Ferreri's romanticism
and distance. There's also an atmospheric connection with Luchino Visconti's
Death In Venice, which is a far cry from Bukowski's Women
or Post Office. Ordinary Madness is more Italian than American,
more Ferreri than Bukowski, yet it's still worth seeing whether or not you're
a Bukowski fan. Central performances and the evocation of one man's drunken
quest for truth across a dirty and dream-like landscape are powerful. Ferreri
has captured one side of Bukowski's work, but see this in a double bill
with Barfly for a fuller picture. (Jim Barker)

Peter Greenaway - The Early Works

Dir. Peter Greenaway (Connoisseur Video CR012, 70 mins)

Peter Greenaway once said: "There are, after all,
approaches to be made other than the dependable routes that massage sentimental
expectations and provide easy opportunities for emotional identification."
His refreshingly trenchant anti-realist approach to film-making has, of
course, divided critics and audiences, especially in Britain where both
traditionally crave the security of realist structures of representation
These three examples of Greenaway's early pre-Draughtsman's Contract
work, display an engaging concern for a cinema of ideas where documentary
forms collide with the enigmatic, often hermetic literary worlds of writers
like Lewis Carroll, Jorge-Luis Borges and Andre Breton. The outcome is amusing,
bemusing, ironic; in fact, anything but dull and predictable.

Dear Phone (1976), approximately
16 minutes, is essentially about the uses and abuses of the telephone system.
Static shots of red telephone boxes in various locations (including the
Houses of Parliament), at various times of the day in various types of weather,
are linked by entertainingly convoluted narratives, scribbled, often illegibly,
or badly typed. Each contains a male character with the initials HC, most
of whom have wives called Zelda, and all are incurably obsessed with the
telephone.

Water Wrackets (1978), approximately
10 minutes, is similar in tone to those short heritage-information films
(usually about British castles) which the BBC used to plug awkward gaps
in its morning schedule. Colin Cantlie's deadpan documentary voice-over
describes a fictional military campaign and its aftermath, using a euphonious,
yet virtually impenetrable terminology. The visuals splendidly display the
photogenic properties of water, whilst Max Eastley's 'ambient' score heightens
the intrigue. Homage or parody? One is never quite sure.

Of the three, A Walk Through H (1978), approximately
40 minutes, comes closest to the Greenaway that most film-goers will be
familiar with. There is the fascination with game-playing, statistics, black
humour and, of course, death. Michael Nyman's rhythmically compelling score
adds a further note of familiarity. "The Walk" refers to the transition
of the soul from the dead body to its destination "H" which, according
to Greenaway, "could stand for either Heaven or Hell". Greenaway's
father, an ornithologist, died six months before its making which possibly
accounts for its somewhat elegiac subject matter and the central image of
birds. Shots of these are introduced more rapidly as the narrator's journey
across 92 painterly maps (using rostrum camera) reaches its end. In typical
Greenaway fashion, the film raises more questions than it's prepared to
answer. (Chris Blackford)

The Falls is arguably Peter
Greenaway's most demanding film: an epic three-hour journey through the
labyrinth of his game-playing imagination. The central premise on which
the 'narrative' is based seems to be that approximately 19 million individuals
have become victims of an apocalyptic catastrophe, the Violent Unknown Event
(VUE), which has left them with various debilitating medical conditions
(the early physiological signs of mutating into birds), speaking in bizarre,
private languages, and interested in ornithology and/or human flight. All
are now immortal. The viewer is presented with a selection of 92 brief case
histories of victims registered in the Directory published by the committee
investigating the VUE: the surnames of these selected individuals begin
with the letters FALL.

Greenaway's 11 years as a film editor at the Central Office
Of Information, an arm of the British Home Office, laid the foundations
for his enduring fascination with bureaucracy and bureaucratic methods of
collecting and collating statistical information. Add a generous pinch of
parody, a Borgesian (read the classic Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius)
attention to detail, documentary voice-overs and interviewers, and you have
something of the tone of The Falls (which took five years to assemble).
Its preoccupation with strange characters, absurd statistical data, birds,
English landscape and water photography feature in earlier (and later) Peter
Greenaway films such as Dear Phone (1976) Water Wrackets (1978)
and A Walk Through H (1978) - available on Peter Greenaway: The
Early Works (Connoisseur CR 012), see review in Rubberneck 10/11
- but in The Falls receive a more thorough-going treatment. The staggering
complexity of the information crammed into these case histories makes the
video format particularly appropriate; repeat viewing offers a relaxed way
of absorbing the literary intricacies. The director has suggested that the
viewer take the work a little at a time, or fast-forward if and when desired
- there is no compulsion to view its three hours in one sitting or in any
set sequence. It's to be viewed as one uses an encyclopedia. In the long
term, however, interactive video might prove to be the film's most effective
format, where each of its 92 sections could be separately indexed to ensure
speed and accuracy of access, and options to programme section order or
adopt shuffle mode would invite further viewing strategies.

While the film offers no clear allegorical reading, the
title may suggest the biblical fall of Man. Birds, who are possibly responsible
for the VUE, are perhaps presented as idealised, liberated creatures whose
enhanced powers of vision and flight are desired by mankind, hence the preoccupation
with human attempts to simulate bird flight and references to the fall of
Icarus. The transmigration of souls (dealt with in the bird imagery of A
Walk Through H) is again suggested by the victims' development of bird
physiology, perhaps in preparation for this spiritual journey.

Allegory or not, Greenaway's principal achievement in The
Falls is to have created a compelling and consistent world sustained
by the conventions of the documentary form; however absurd or hilarious
the revelations appear, the mode of representation (the sober voice-overs,
the restrained camera movements, the use of found footage, the teeming cross-references
inside the film and to other (even future) Greenaway films, etc) rings true.
When a narrator questions the veracity of the VUE itself, it serves to reinforce
the foundations on which the whole enterprise is based. If there's a darker
side to the film, it's that it reminds us of the sinister way governments
control and fabricate the nature of the information they disseminate to
their populations through the seemingly reliable structures of bureaucracy.
The Falls is Peter Greenaway at his most engagingly bizarre and challenging,
and further proof that he is Britain's greatest living film writer and director.
(Chris Blackford)

Taking up a theme that is central to his earlier work (a
consideration of how ethical issues affect individuals in their everyday
lives), the Three Colours trilogy by the Polish director/writer Krzysztof
Kieslowski, who died in March this year, explores the ideals of the French
Revolution (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity) in a contemporary setting. Although
each film in the trilogy may be viewed independently, in Red, the final
film, the fate of this disparate group of characters is cleverly brought
together. However, not only does each film draw on a different group of
characters, but the tone and style of each is very different.

Three Colours - Blue (1993)
is a visual delight with its use of coloured filters and lingering close-ups
in which the stillness of the camera allows us to watch the central character
Julie (Juliette Binoche) think and feel. Surviving a car crash in which
her husband and daughter are killed, Blue is the story of Julie's attempt
to come to terms with this tragedy and to 'free' herself from painful memories.
There is a slow rhythm to the film; Kieslowski makes much use of symbolism
to convey the long and difficult process of coping with loss. Recurring
snatches of classical music (Julie's husband was a composer) connote the
painful resurfacing of memory, whilst beautifully shot scenes of Julie swimming
in a pool could be seen as representing a desire to cleanse and purify the
spirit. Eventually, Julie's quest for freedom, which involves an attempt
to become free of personal involvement and responsibility, is presented
as rather empty and lonely, reinforced by the final lines of the choral
work by her husband, which she is helping to finish: "If I have not
love, I am hollow."

Three Colours - White (1993)
the second film in this series, addresses the ideal of equality. Without
the slow moving symbolism of Blue, its style is more clearly narrative-based.
Divorced by his French wife (Julie Delphy) on the grounds that their marriage
has not been consummated, Polish hairdresser husband, Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski),
is left homeless and penniless on the streets of Paris. He returns to Warsaw
by a very unconventional route. Yes, what follows is often quite bizarre
and also humorous, the director cunningly interweaves strong feelings of
passion and love with a darker strain of obsession, where 'equality' means
getting even. However, White lacks the attention to visual detail
that forms such an important part of the pleasures of both Blue and
Red.

In what was to become his last film, Three Colours -
Red (1994), Kieslowski constructs another complex narrative structure
with two storylines running in tandem, their links and points of reference
becoming apparent as the film unfolds. Through the ideal of fraternity,
Red explores responsibility, betrayal and survival, counterposing the optimism
of youth, in the form of a young model, Valentine (Irène Jacob),
with the cynicism and defeatism of old age - a retired judge played by the
veteran French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. One senses that Kieslowski
values this ideal above the others. Where the pursuit of freedom has been
held up as a lonely individualism, and equality as the imposition of sameness,
the ideal of fraternity is interpreted as enriching and rewarding: a point
emphasised when Valentine reaches out to help the elderly stooped woman,
who has passed across the screen in all three films, to deposit her bottles
in a bottle bank. It's a simple, yet unself-conscious act of humanity which
resonates across this marvellous trilogy. (Catherine Blackford)

Strangely enough, this stunning quartet of quintessentially
Japanese ghost stories ('Kwaidan' means 'ghost story') is based on the writings
of an American, Lafcadio Hearn, who collected and published tales and legends
from Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Kobayashi's adaptations
are both visually and culturally stunning. Best known for his nine-hour
epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959-61), the director makes full
use of Japanese tradition in both set and costume. The Samurai uniforms,
priests' robes, elegant dresses, and dishevelled peasants' rags are rich
and colourful, while the obviously artificial sets (including a sky painted
with eyes in the 'Snow Woman' segment) give the viewer a sense of theatrical
and storytelling distance. All four tales are impressive, but the third
segment, 'Hoichi the Earless' is the most affecting. At first we see a re-enactment
of a medieval sea battle which captures all the power and tragedy of the
Japanese Samurai tradition against a background of burning red sky, then
a blind biwa (a kind of Japanese sitar) player is called upon to sing the
song cycle of the battle by the ghosts of the fallen. His attempt to escape
their spiritual clutches has horrific consequences.

In all, this film makes a welcome change from other similar
compendium horror films of the 60s like Twice Told Tales (1963),
Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors (1964) and Torture Garden (1967).
Japanese film has seldom been better used to chill the spine, while the
startlingly eerie soundtrack by the late Toru Takemitsu is alone worth the
price of the video. (Jim Barker)

Color Me Lurid - The Weird World Of George Kuchar

Dir.George Kuchar (Connoisseur Video CR017, 70 mins)

George Kuchar is part of the American underground tradition,
though his work has not received the sort of critical attention in this
country as, say Andy Warhol's or Kenneth Anger's. It doesn't help matters
when encyclopedias habitually omit to mention his idiosyncratic contribution
to experimental cinema; consequently, the sleevenotes to these four shorts
are particularly welcome. Born in New York in 1942, he started making 8mm
films with his twin brother, Mike, at the age of 12. At 24 he produced,
directed, wrote, edited, photographed and appeared in the 16mm Hold Me
While I'm Naked (1966). If Fellini's 81/2 is the most visually
resplendent film about a director's struggle to make a film, Kuchar's has
to be the cheesiest and most hilarious 15 minute romp around the same theme.
Jump-cutting between pairs of lovers engaged in soft-porn canoodling and
an increasingly (sexually) frustrated director (played by Kuchar), who ends
up banging his head against the bathroom wall, Kuchar heightens the drama
with emphatic use of garish colours, whining voice-over and wistful melodramatic
score.

The Mongreloid (1978) also
eschews Hollywood production values and opts instead for a sort of super
low-budget home movie observation of the director and his pet hound. Reminiscences
of the latter's sexploits and excretory pleasures make this a remarkable
exercise in how to extract hilarity from banality.

Ostensibly a documentary about a 'Hooray For Kids' festival,
Forever And Always (1978) is intercut with scenes from a provocative
melodrama which tend to get lost amid other less interesting footage. Mannequins
and children's toys conspire to provide an eerily surreal as well as comic
atmosphere. Dialogue is replaced by a succession of kitsch love songs which
carry an unexpected poignancy.

A Reason To Live (1976) brings
together a number of Kuchar's obsessions: troublesome toilets, troublesome
weather and troublesome love. This, the gem in the collection, is primarily
a film about films; a 27 minute distillation of the excesses of Hollywood
melodrama and film noir, clothed in Kuchar's glittering camp aesthetics.
In the paranoid shadowplay of its glorious chiaroscuro black and white photography,
one senses the spirit of Von Stroheim, Von Sternberg, and Swanson with Wilder.
Elsewhere, in the foggy, ethereal outdoors, Sirk and Dieterle are referenced.
(Chris Blackford)

"It's a strange world," Jeffrey Beaumont concludes
in Blue Velvet. The world of Wild At Heart is stranger still
and very very sick. Its Lula (Laura Dern) says: "It's just shocking
sometimes when things aren't the way you thought they were." This is
the voice of a 20 year-old, who is raped at 13 by an uncle, who terminates
the pregnancy, who witnesses the torching of her father, and is now on the
run from her psychotic mother, with a boyfriend (Nicolas Cage) who has broken
parole after beating out the brains of a man with his bare hands.

Lynch's vision has rarely been this chilling, his penchant
for expressionist lighting and neo-surrealist framing, this extreme. His
characters burn with a passion called hate. The two that love, do so in
an escapist, Yellow Brick Road kind of fantasy. Their ancestors are
Lang's problematic 'heroes' (e.g. The Big Heat, Rancho Notorious)
who strive to do what is 'right', yet never emerge unsullied. Still, there
is humour here; usually off-the-wall or jet black, and delivered in a spoof
50s B-movie lingo. However, the confrontation between Lula and sadistic
mobster, Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), is revolting. That Lynch should even
suggest the possibility of Lula's complicity in this sexual assault is treading
on some very very thin ice indeed. Peru's flip remark at the end of the
scene is presumably Lynch's way of saying it's not for real - it doesn't
become him.

Lynch is now big bucks at the box office. Mainstream film-goers
are flocking to see his films on the strength of the Twin Peaks show. Horror
fans still get off on the violence and sadistic sex. Those of us who defended
Blue Velvet against charges of gratuitous violence and misogyny,
because Lynch was an auteur working through complex themes, see the same
themes reworked in Wild At Heart, but might now be feeling increasingly
uneasy, because here they are swept along by the tidal wave of adrenalin
whipped up by tight editing and Lynch's stunning visual style. You will
need to see this film a number of times before passing judgement. Its video
release is, therefore, essential. (Chris Blackford)

A film in three chapters, Dear Diary takes us through
a year in the life of its director Nanni Moretti (winner of Best Director
at Cannes in 1994). In chapter one, the camera follows Moretti on his Vespa
through rather uninspiring streets in Rome, while the voice-over tells us
about his passion for exploring different neighbourhoods. Although amusing
at times, this is like watching someone's home movie - one or two laughs
but nothing very memorable.

Chapter two continues the diary theme, although here voice
to camera and voice-overs are replaced by dialogue between Moretti and friend
as they search for peace and solitude in the Eolian islands. This kind of
format calls to mind a travel show, lots of beautiful scenery, some engaging
characters, but a rather forced narrative.

In chapter three, Moretti adopts a style reminiscent of
fly-on-the-wall documentary, taking us through a year of frustrating encounters
with mainstream and alternative medics. Only in this chapter does one really
begin to appreciate the inclusion of this low-key, lighthearted content.
In a sense, its presence serves to throw into sharp contrast the more intimate
and genuinely moving events recorded in this part of the film. At the same
time it's a reminder of the multi-textured and layered content not just
of diary writing/making, but of life itself. (Catherine Blackford)

Sally Potter's The Tango Lesson is a different kind
of love story, using the interesting device of having two main leads, Potter
and Pablo Veron, an internationally acclaimed dancer, playing themselves
in a fictional context. This sets up a strange tension; while Potter is
a key player in the drama, her aloof and 'unactorly' screen presence (the
distinction between her 'real' self and screen character deliberately blurred),
together with the knowledge that she's the film's director, has an unsettling
affect on the narrative, resulting in romantic exchanges which appear staged
and dramatically unconvincing. Perhaps what we are witnessing is a form
of dramatic therapy where Potter-director explores her own fantasies.

Structuring the narrative around Sally's (Potter) attempts
to learn the tango from Pablo (Veron) an Argentinian dancer, the film is
divided into a series of lessons, taking us through the characters' emotional
struggles and conflicts rather than merely dance steps or routines. For
Potter, the crux of learning the dance is an emotional and intell-ectual
struggle over whether to hand over the power to lead and direct which forms
a fundamental part of her own work/life. In this respect, it's also an analysis
of gender relations. Towards the end, when roles are reversed and Pablo
becomes a potential actor in the screenplay Potter is working on, we see
the couple renegotiating their relationship and evaluating the compromises
required to work together.

The film's at its most visually stimulating and light hearted
when the romantic exchanges errupt, in the well worn tradition of musicals,
into fully fledged dance routines where the lovers dance to a seductive
score of tangos in the cobbled streets of Buenos Aires and by lamplit river
in Paris. Given her ease and elegance dancing the tango, it shouldn't surprise
you to learn that in 'real life' Potter trained as a dancer/choreographer
at the London School Of Contemporary Dance in the 1970s. (Catherine Blackford)

It's commonly accepted that there is massive over-production
in French cinema, which means many French films never travel abroad, and
doubtless don't deserve to. When a successful piece of French product does
enjoy some success abroad, it seems churlish to complain, especially as
this is a well constructed piece of work, but I found it pretty thin stuff
compared to, say, the films of Olivier Assayas, which haven't broken out
of the festival circuit over here.

Rochant got some fine performances out of the cast of his
first feature, Un Monde Sans Pitie, and there's nothing wrong with
the acting on display here either, but I found the storyline idiotic and
the characters unsympathetic. Others have argued that it's all terribly
gripping (non-entity tries to 'be someone' by hi-jacking a school bus),
and some of the plot twists are certainly fresh, in a sort of daft existential
way. It's also a welcome change from the world of morose Parisian student
types found in Rochant's earlier film, but I have to confess to wanting
a wholesale massacre to break out by the time I'd reached the 30-minute
mark. (Gerard F Tierney)

Syberberg's trawl through the highways and byways of German
culture occupied much of the 1970s, producing film epics such as Ludwig
and Hitler, plus more 'intimate' films like Ludwig's Cook
and Winifred Wagner. In 1982 this body of work reached its perhaps inevitable
climax as HJS took on 'ol RW himself, on the 100th anniversary of Parsifal's
first performance at Bayreuth. With Syberberg, we're a long way from either
'filmed theatre' or 'opera on location'; he creates vast, surreal settings
(Wagner's death-mask the size of some Teutonic Mount Rushmore), filled with
a curious mixture of objects symbolic, dramatic and kitsch. Part of the
fascination is that the camera, despite the tableaux, is mainly focused
on the actors, most of whom are non-singers lip-synching (very successfully,
too). The subject matter is a notoriously heady brew of magic, myth and
religion. This production emphasises phallic imagery, a strong case of the
Oedipal and a palpable castration anxiety. One major variation involves
gender, occurs during the second act, and is fully in line with the depiction
of this anxiety. There's also extra emphasis on Kundry, and Clever's mesmerising
performance fully justifies this: the ageless Kundry constantly plays upon,
and subverts, male neurosis towards the 'wild woman'. Not a Wagnerite, I
was still impressed by the scale and intensity of the music, while constantly
intrigued by Syberberg's approach. However, four hours, even split into
three acts over two tapes, will prove pretty daunting for many non-believers.
(Gerard F Tierney)

A young professor of entomology (Eiji Okada) in a desert
surrounding a remote village, searching for that new species which will
get his name and reputation forever established in an encylopedia. He ruminates
on the task's absolute need for corroboration and certification; in fact,
a certificate for everything in his life, his identity measured out in certificates
- finally, even a certificate for a 'missing person'

He accepts an offer to spend the night in a house in the
village which turns out to be a shack at the bottom of a pit: its only inhabitant
a young widow. Thus begins his strange imprisonment. Trapped like the insects
he studiously pins to boards or keeps in bottles, his confusion turns to
anger, to desperation, but never to complete hopelessness.

Teshigahara's bewitching allegory is a testimony to the
persistence of the human spirit when all seems incomprehensible; also, perhaps,
a political statement about the need for individuality in the face of collective
coercion and conformity. Larger ideas, however, are never allowed to overburden
the essential starkness of the human predicament as it appears in the basic
narrative. The ensuing 'relationship' with the woman (Kyoko Kishida) is
beautifully paced. She seduces him, first by sleeping naked, ostensibly
to avoid "sand rash". Unwittingly, he is acting out a role prescribed
by the woman in league with the villagers' "village council" whose
deeper motive is revealed to us but not, it seems, to him. Their moments
of tenderness and passion are smoothly juxtaposed with shots of the rippled
dunes; huge close-ups of sand-flecked skin create a broad, textural landscape
of eroticism - temporary escape from the cramped confines of the shack.
(Chris Blackford)

Whitelaw, an American based in Paris, has directed a few
films, made cameos in others, subtitled far more. This is his best-known
work; it had a cult following in repertory cinemas, and not just for an
extensive bondage scene. The story is familiar: scientific experiment meets
conspiracy theory. Keller, visiting Amsterdam, pursues a dead colleague's
research into the secret of eternal life. Kinski, a Swiss industrialist
spends early scenes brooding in the background, then becomes more central
to the plot. The most interesting element is our old favourite - how much
is real and how much the hero's paranoia? Though atmospheric, the film depends
upon large chunks of narration, frequently a sign of trouble (of course,
in the right hands, narration can be a triumph). Here, it's just flat. Aumont,
Kinski and the mainly Dutch cast are quite convincing (though some dubbing
produces mixed results), but there isn't much for them to do; Keller is
unconvincing, a weak and unlikeable figure to play against. Curiously, Terry
Riley provided the music, with a few surprise results. It has to be said
that this review copy is several minutes short - the aforementioned bondage
scene, in fact. (Gerard F Tierney)

Based on Lillian Hellman's classic lesbian stage play The
Children's Hour (a big success at the National Theatre last year), the
video release of William Wyler's These Three promises, but does not
provide, an early representation of lesbian love. Whilst it succeeds in
capturing the claustrophobia of smalltown American life and the hysteria
unleashed by rumour and scandal, the heterosexualisation of the plot reveals
rather more about inter-war anti-lesbianism than the original content of
Hellman's play. By making the male character, a local doctor (Joel McCrea),
the prinicpal object of desire, Wyler removes all traces of lesbianism from
the film.

Yet, in his second screen adaptation of Hellman's play,
The Loudest Whisper (1963), starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine,
Wyler reinstated the play's central themes - female friendship and lesbianism
- and in so doing produced one of the few films of the post-war period which
dealt with the issue of lesbianism. These Three may stand alone as
a powerful account of the effects of frenzy whipped up by rumour and gossip
in a conservative community, but it also needs to be seen as another striking
example of Hollywood homophobia. (Catherine Blackford)